BENGALURU: Bengaluru city police on Friday booked a case against Ola cabs chief executive officer (CEO) and the chief technical officer (CTO) for using pirated audio tracks in the prime play tabs installed in Ola cabs.
The accused are CEO Bhavesh Agarwal and CTO Ankith Bathi who are presently in the USA and Singapore respectively.
According to police, the Ola cabs (ANI Technologies Private Limited) had installed songs from Telugu movie Bahubali and Kannada movies Sundaranga Jana and Gowthami Putra Sathakarni. The audio rights were purchased by Lahari Musics.
The complaint was registered by Lahari recording company on May 20, 2017, with Jeevanbheema Nagar police station. Police said that the accused had uploaded the songs to prime play tabs by downloading them from different websites.
"We have seized the CPU, display board, tabs, monitors and key boards from the accused," the police said.
The songs were downloaded even before their audio release and loaded in prime play tabs in Ola cabs plying in Karnataka, Delhi, Kolkata, Tamil Nadu and other places.
Police said, they had prevented Lahari Music from incurring a loss of Rs one crore.
Authorities from legal consultancy for Ola stated in a press release that, "Ola, has at all times conducted its business with the highest legal and ethical standards and will continue to do so in the future as well. This matter has come to our attention and the facts that have been reported in the media regarding the management of OLA are unfair and without basis.
" It appears that the management of Ola has been dragged into this issue with a mala fide intention. We are confident that our client will stand vindicated of these allegations. Our client is sensitive to their rights as well as that of others. We have taken appropriate legal steps to protect our client's interests and the matter is now before the courts." the release said.